1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for synchronizing account names for an identity across a plurality of security systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, most computers are connected to some type of network. A network allows a computer to share information with other computer systems. The Internet is one example of a computer network. The Internet is a global network of computers and networks joined together by means of gateways that handle data transfer and the conversion of messages from a protocol of the sending network to a protocol used by the receiving network. On the Internet, any computer may communicate with any other computer with information traveling over the Internet through a variety of languages, also referred to as protocols. Typically, the Internet uses a set of protocols called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
A large number of Internet users require information to be gathered from across different organizational boundaries and heterogeneous platforms. Each of these different organizations and platforms may have different security systems that protect confidential data. As a result, each of these secure systems may require a secure identity credential, such as, for example, a user name and password, to gain access to the requested data. Consequently, a user must create a user name and password for each encountered security system. However, the same user may intentionally, or unintentionally, use different user names and passwords for these different security systems. Thus, the user has a ponderous job of remembering which user name and password to enter into which security system.
Solutions currently exist for converting an identity credential for a user in a single security system to a standardized identity credential, but the capability to resolve identity credential conflicts between multiple security systems is not presently available. Furthermore, these existing solutions do not work cross-security system to provide the ability to convert multiple security system distributions, such as, for example, AIX®, HP-UX®, and Linux®, into a single security system distribution, such as, for example, AIX®.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to have an improved computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for synchronizing a set of account names associated with an identity from a plurality of local security systems.